While browsing around Chester the other week, I saw a copy of this photo (source unknown) on a display board in the shopping centre, and found it quite interesting.

This is a Comet fuselage being steered around the Crosses in the centre of Chester, back when it was a normal road, prior to the by-pass opening.

After a few comments (notably about the seemingly-magic ladder on the right hand side) someone found a reference that, for a while, the fuselage was built by Short in Belfast, shipped to Ellesmere Port, and then brought by road to Broughton, site of the current Airbus factory.

I imagine this contributed to later production moving to Hatfield where it was all built in one place.

Very interesting, we were only walking around there last week, little did I realise such momentous aviation-related scenes had taken place there a few decades earlier.

I hadn't realised that this kind of thing had gone on back then with reference to the Comet, I well remember Guppies (based on the Boeing Stratocruiser) flying into Ringway (Manchester) airport in the 1970s and 80s to transport wings over to the French Airbus factory, a job now undertaken by the Beluga out of Broughton.

Avro also used to transport huge chunks of Vulcan through Stockport to Woodford for final assembly, which involved numerous street lights having to be designed so that they could swing out of the way overnight, whenever a shipment was passing through.

This would have been taken before the inner ring road (late 60's) and the bypass (late 70's) I suspect the route would have been down Northgate Street in which case they would have made a right hand turn and immediately a left (when the pic was taken) as the Cross in Chester is a dogleg.

The only other route would to have come down Eastgate St, both routes involve going through an archway where the city walls dissect the roads, the Northgate arch is taller than the Eastgate and I'm not sure it would have made it through the Eastgate arch.

Coincidentally I was travelling from Hatfield to Chester yesterday, my firms offices are built on the old airfield site, the surrounding roads have names like; Comet Way, Gypsy Moth Avenue, Mosquito Way. Other than road names there is little evidence of the old airfield or manufacturing facilities, the old DeHavilland admin building is a police station, and the main test hanger now a David Lloyd gym.

There was a 1930 arc deco hotel called the Comet nearby, now closed and recently converted to student accommodation.

PS I googled after writing the post and found this:

This pic would have been taken from the Eastgate arch (famous one with the clock) so it did fit !!

While browsing in WH Smiths in Chester today, I came across a book called "Chester in the 1950s" by Paul Hurley, and there's a section devoted to the transportation of the Comet, along with some more photos which show it going through Manchester (past what is now the Printworks) and another couple of Chester photos.